Things To Remember When Babysitting A Consulting Detective
by DreamingEmily
Summary: Life as John Watson is full of London alleyways, crime scenes, bad tea, and a consulting detective flatmate. Living with his flatmate itself is an adventure in its own way - Sherlock is hard to deal with as always, and yet somehow, John ends up taking care of him. Here are some recollections on their time living together in their little flat in 221b Baker Street.
1. Post-case Syndrome & Spiders

Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective of 221B Baker Street, is mortally afraid of spiders.

John sighed at the absurdity of it, of all the years he has known Sherlock, including the two-year period when he assumed he had buried Sherlock's body, nothing could have readied him for this new knowledge about the great detective. Out of all the things he had seen and been through, out of all the fears a genius could have, Sherlock Holmes has to be afraid of spiders.

He discovered this knowledge after he woke up this morning to find Sherlock hunched in a corner of the sofa, glaring at a spot on the table like it had the nerve to offend him. That spot, John later learned, was apparently a tiny, 'cunningly evil' and ' plotting' spider (according to Sherlock). He had proposed they guide the unfortunate spider outside the flat with his newspaper, but Sherlock only looked at him with an expression of pure horror. John distinctly remembers the same expression on Mycroft Holmes' face when he asked for permission to touch that tarantula at Baskerville. Maybe it runs in families.

As John moves around in the kitchen, making his tea with a little low fat milk (his morning jogs did not help at all, according to Sherlock), he sighed at his flatmate's extreme personality. Not that he doesn't like living with Sherlock, living in the central of London with a rather cheap rent is a great benefit, but Sherlock's personality can be a handful sometimes. He sipped his steaming tea and was lost in his thoughts for a while.

"John? John! JAAAAWWWWNN!" Sherlock wailed from the sitting room

"What is it now?" Sherlock had been out of sorts ever since he woke up this morning after finishing a rather gruesome case involving a dead fashion designer and a poisoned mascara (which John has named 'The Eye of the Beholder'). In his normal case-solving self, Sherlock can be considered a big drama queen, issuing orders on everyone, offering insults to the officers at Scotland Yard, and overreacting to almost everything that happens. After living with him for so many years, John has gotten used to Sherlock's drama-queeness, but he knows from experience that the detective's agreeableness is way lower than his usual annoying self after a case. After years of living with Sherlock, John has eventually developed a system of tracking Sherlock's agreeableness, which is to match certain Sherlockian behaviours to stages of the 'post-case syndrome'.

In the first stage of post-case, which begins a couple of hours after a finished case, Sherlock is usually calm, perhaps from the exhaustion of finishing cases that requires metal and physical effort; Sherlock is more subdued from eating, sleeping, and the satisfaction of solving a given case. Second stage post-case Sherlock begins a day or two after the case and features a sullen detective stealing John's laptops to do experiments on his blog, there were many times in which John had to tackle Sherlock and wrestle with him on the flat's dirty floor for his stolen laptop.

Judging from the indicators, Sherlock is on the third-stage today.

" It's here! I know it's still here, I can feel it!" He was sprawled across the sofa in his dressing gown and pajamas, his messy hair stuck up even more as he crumpled it with both hands frustratingly, making him looked (and sounded) like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

John sipped his cup of tea and surveyed the living room, there wasn't a single spider to be seen after Sherlock tried to beat it with the riding crop, which is still peaking out from under Sherlock's body. He sat down on his favourite armchair and started to read the morning paper.

"Sherlock, it's gone now, no need to worry about the spider. What's a tiny spider is going to do to you anyway?" He mumbled while flipping through the pages, looking for something interesting to take his mind off from his melodramatic flatmate. The third stage is not something he hates but is still hard to deal with, Sherlock is usually unpredictable in his actions in his normal self, but combine his dramatic nature and the lack of cases and you will get something new altogether; this often includes loud speeches about the soles of John's feet describing his entire sex life, violent outbursts at the smiley face on the wall, hacking into John's blog and writing down links to porn sites to check the audience's reactions, imploding the kitchen and other things that make John want to strangle his flatmate. John wonders if he could write about the post-case syndrome on his blog, it'll probably be popular with the Scotland Yard.

"No, it's not!" Sherlock sat up, annoyed, and glared at John from across the room " Because spiders bite, John. Don't you get it? Can't you feel it? It's here. It's still here. I can feel it staring at me!" He half-shouted grumpily and once again flopped down and curled himself into the back of the sofa.

" For God's sake, you're just bored!" John slammed his newspaper close and got up from the armchair wearily.

" Hmm, perhaps?" Sherlock 's voice came out muffled from facing the sofa. John stared at the ball of a man with the height and limps too long to be acting like a three-year old in want of attention.

"Fine. Will you be satisfied if we do a throughout search of the flat to prove to spider is still here?"

Sherlock turned his head to look at him, considering John's offer for a few seconds and rolled himself over.

" You'll really help me find the spider?"

" That's what I'm saying."

Sherlock beamed at John with twinkling eyes and jumped out of the sofa energetically. John tried hard not to smile at Sherlock's figure darting to suspicious corners of the flat and managed to roll his eyes instead. Sometimes he realize how much he spoils Sherlock, if you can spoil a full-grown man. But he really can't help it, John thought as he drained the remaining of his cup of tea.

Because in the third stage Sherlock acts like a toddler; stubborn, loud, and has tantrums, but John doesn't hate it. In fact, he finds himself happy to feel needed, to find himself the center of someone else's attention.

After moving several stacks of paper on Sherlock's desk and looking behind cushions, John caught Sherlock stealing glances at him, and when he raised his eyebrow questioningly Sherlock cleared his throat nervously.

"John, when we find the spider…" Sherlock began and shuddered at the word "spider".

"...Can you pick it up for me?" he finished through gritted teeth, the riding crop by his side, his eyes on the floorboards. "I don't want Mycroft to see, he is already enjoying too much out of this."He gestured at the window, at the CCTV camera that always watches their flat.

John's stare continued for a few more seconds before he settled down his empty cup. He could almost see Mycroft smirking at Sherlock's behaviour through the camera, and for some reason, he doesn't like that someone else can see Sherlock this way.

"Sure. Tell you what, why don't we send your brother an early Christmas present while we're at it?"

Sherlock's blue-gray eyes lifted to meet his for a second, and breaks into a wide, mischievous grin.

"Like mature adults, John."

"Like mature adults indeed." John chuckled.

You really can't help spoiling Sherlock Holmes.


	2. Takeouts Tonight?

John recalls a case in which a poor serial killer was chased by a manic Sherlock and how his Tesco shopping bag became the hero that saved the day.

Sherlock worked on the case for a full week. There were a series of murders across London and every corpse was found with a bloody hatchet and an empty Diet Coke can - signs suggesting that a serial killer is in town and that Sherlock is very, very, interested.

Very, very, interested.

When questioned about the interesting points of a mundane B-rated movie murder weapon and a soft drink can, Sherlock who was pacing ( skipping) from the kitchen to his computer merely explained that Mycroft loves Coca Cola but hates the guts of its alternate diet version. John didn't really understand but didn't press for further details.

Sherlock had spent the following days and nights sorting through investigation files, screaming for tea, and thinking. John had gotten used to the sight of a hundred coke cans lying around in their flat ( Mycroft once sent men in black suits, complete with dark sunglasses and headsets, to stack them into neat, orderly piles - one bloke even made an impressive replica of the Big Ben - John thinks Mycroft couldn't stand the horrific sight of scattered Diet Coke cans through the CCTV camera). There were times when John thought his flat mate had gone completely nuts; Sherlock would occasionally bursts into fits of laughter when he is on his laptop. Again when questioned, he either replied :" " or " Diet Coca Cola", John couldn't tell which answer was more worrying.

The week Sherlock spent trying to solve the case was mildly depressing to John. He would wake up everyday to find more empty Coca Cola cans in the living room, which is hardly sanitary, as the stench of more than two hundred soda cans began to attract the complains of . John knew it was highly unlikely that she will kick them out because of that, but still, you have to listen to your landlady. Sherlock would not listen to his pleas for the use of a bin, and would always give one-word answers to any question John asked that week.

To be truthful, he was getting kind of lonely.

" Dear, you know Sherlock is always like this." had reassured him over a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, " I'm sure he'll come around soon. That's marriage for you." The second sentence was said under her breath.

Then came the 7th day after the case was given to Sherlock, he solved it, of course, but it had been surprisingly tough for the consulting detective . Of course Sherlock would not admit that, but he did say "Clever. Clever!". Which is basically the same thing. Although Sherlock managed to identify the killer, Mr. Howard Hastings, there was the question of how to catch him, seeing that his real identity was presumed to be dead but Sherlock claimed the man is working on building a trade company complete with a rivaling beverage brand.

"The key to identifying the killer, John, was the secret ingredients Hastings cleverly placed in the drinks while he was working at his old company." Sherlock had said while putting on his cloak, preparing to go out.

John asked why it was that important.

"Because, John, they're not just any ordinary special ingredients, they are _codes_!" Sherlock said with his head peeking through the door of the flat.

Seeing that Sherlock was very near to completing the case, John reminded himself to go buy the ingredients for making pasta. Sherlock must eat anyway,

So on that particular Thursday evening, John was walking home from shopping at Tesco's when suddenly this poor lad in a blue suit was running towards him with one manic-looking Sherlock at his heels. John stopped dead in his tracks, but the two ran past him without stopping, Sherlock said a "Hello, John!" before snatching his plastic bag, emptying the eggs and milk cartons on to the pavement and winning an indecent "Hey!" from John.

The lad was fast, but not fast enough for Mr. Sherlock-the-world's-only-bigot-consulting-detective-Holmes. Very soon Sherlock closed the distance between them with his long legs, and just as John though he'll tackle the man, Sherlock quickly pulled the Tesco bag over the killer's head. Both of them crashed into the London sidewalk in a flurry of flying arms and legs. Struggle, however, was futile, and after a few moments Sherlock's head turned back to give John a victorious grin with twinkling eyes.

Until this day, John never understood why the Tesco bag and his eggs should have suffered.

John jogged towards the two men with the surviving groceries in hand as the Scotland Yard arrives. Sherlock was looking absolutely pleased with himself; with his head held high, chest puffed out, a smug grin - John almost expected to see a cat's tail standing upright from Sherlock's bum.

" This case, John, this case, was absolutely fantastic!" With one knee on the killer, Sherlock exclaimed, his arms spread wide open like he was yelling to God.

"Coke cans, BRILLIANT. Thank you, Mr. Hastings, Thank you for this brilliant case!" He bent down to kiss the Tesco plastic bag head of the man with a loud 'Mmwa!'. At that, Lestrade rolled his eyes and the Yard took control and separated the mad detective from the poor killer.

John wanted to lecture Sherlock about the mental value of groceries , the importance of not wasting resources, and how are they going to have their bloody dinner now that there ingredients are gone.

But just then Sherlock approached him with his messy curls, a wide smile on his face, and a mad twinkle in his eyes. For the first time in that week, Sherlock seems to notice John properly, and John is once again reminded on the fact that Sherlock seems to know all the little gears in John's head and what he is thinking. That made John Watson, temporal bachelor, remember another fact he learned while living with the world's only consulting detective.

" Take-outs tonight, John?"

" Chinese?"

" Thought you'd never ask."

And they left the crime scene, giggling.


End file.
